Barbarians, Byzantines, and Berbers: Early Medieval North Africa, AD 300-1050

This class explores the transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages through the lens of western North Africa. Divided internally by theological disputes and inter-communal violence, and subjected to repeated conquests and reconquests from the outside, in this period North Africa witnessed the triumph of Islam over Christianity; the rise and fall of ephemeral kingdoms, empires, and caliphates; the gradual desertion of once-prosperous cities and rural settlements; the rising strength of Berber confederations; and the continuing ability of trade to transcend political boundaries and to link the southern Mediterranean littoral to the outside world. P